The invention relates to a mould for encapsulating electronic components mounted on a carrier. The invention also relates to an encapsulating device. Finally, the invention also relates to a method for encapsulating components mounted on a carrier.
Such a mould, encapsulating device and method form known art with which, using for instance epoxy resin, a package of encapsulating material can be applied round an electronic component arranged on a carrier. This technique is used particularly for encapsulating semiconductor products, such as for instance chips.
1. Description of the Prior Art
The European patent application EP 0 730 937 discloses a resin moulding machine with release film. The machine is provided with a mechanism that fixes release film on inner faces of the moulding sections and clamping faces. Also disclosed are air sucking holes in the upper die to hold substrates in the upper die. The loading of substrates in the machine with air sucking holes in the upper die takes a lot of time. The apparatus is also not suited for lead frames with wire bounded electronic components.
There is a tendency in the market towards arranging packages of encapsulating material on a carrier which are increasingly larger in terms of surface area. During further processing these can be for instance sawn into separate parts. This technique is also known as “C.S.P.”, which is derived from “chip size packaging”. The existing moulds and methods have the drawback that when the mould parts are closed a part of the electronic components can come into contact with a mould part. This can for instance cause damage to the components and/or contact wires (“leads”) can be deformed. This is the particular consequence of a carrier not being completely flat when it is placed in a mould. Particularly carriers on which larger packages of encapsulating material must be arranged so that a plurality of electronic components can be moulded simultaneously with one package have such a three-dimensional form. The reason for this is that these carriers are in general thermally treated at many points during placing of the electronic components. This results in stresses in the carrier which, when it is placed in a mould, can result in the carrier not being completely flat. As described above, this results in possible damage to the electronic components and/or connecting wires.
The present invention has for its object to provide an improved mould, encapsulating device and method for encapsulating electronic components mounted on a carrier, with which damage to electronic components and contact wires can be prevented.